Crying
by coffeeplease
Summary: My first fan-fic. Inspired by ReverendKillJoy's "Liar" and the Roy Orbison song "Crying"... spoilers for everything up to "Faith-Based Initiatives". AU, HEAVY TRAGEDY AND ANGST. 4 chapters, story is complete. Feeback is manna from heaven.
1. Crying One

Crying

He started to cry.

He remembers being in Leo's, well now CJ's, office and being told to sit down. He told them he'd be more comfortable standing. He thought it was about MS or China or asteroids or maybe the fact that he had felt, just a tiny bit, like he had outstayed his usefulness here. It had to have been big news. Toby, Leo and C.J. all standing around. Not Kate. Not Annabeth. Not even Will. Why was C.J. crying?

"What's wrong, C.J.?"

They had told them to drive to the White House, now. Maybe they had told him not to stop for red lights, he didn't really recall. It was one of the many, many early morning phone calls he had received over the years and he wasn't phased. The only thing he remembered that they told him, adamantly, over and over again.... Why did Toby's voice sound so soft?... was not to turn on the news. Don't turn on the TV, Josh. Don't turn on the radio. Just get here, as fast as you can.

"Sit down, Josh."

Oh God, the President. It must be worse then what they had been told. Much, much worse. Maybe the unthinkable had happened. Maybe he had.... he couldn't have. MS wasn't fatal. They knew that much. But C.J. was crying, Toby looked like he was about to be sick. Leo looked like after Rosslyn, Mrs. Landingham, Zoey and a heart attack. Ashen. Sad.

The morning sun cast a dim light over the room. Josh wouldn't sit down. Whatever it was, he could take standing. Sam, something must have happened to Sam. Josh's stomach fell into his shoes. Not Sam...

No, it wasn't Sam.

And a horror, dim in the back of his head, announced itself. All of a sudden he knew. And he couldn't breathe.

Leo told him and he didn't start crying. He was still standing and he wasn't crying. C.J. was sobbing into her hands and Toby placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't mean to make her think..." C.J. wailed and Toby's hand clenched and his lips became an even straighter line.

They would tell him later that all he said was "No." "No" to all of it. "No" to too many pain meds and a half bottle of Merlot found near her bed. "No" to the fact that it could have been an accident, but no one knows yet and DC police are talking to Margaret and Charlie. "No" to the fact that he, later, would have to talk to the police to see if he noticed anything.

No, they were all very sorry for him. No, he could take as much time as he needed. No, the funeral would be on Wednesday. No, the President was on the phone with her parents now.

"Josh..." Toby's voice was horrible, soft, invading. And he stood there. He wasn't crying.

Vaguely, he knows that someone called for Dr. Bartlet. Margaret was back from her interview and she was crying, sobbing hysterically in her office. Ginger was hugging her, crying. Every damn person around Josh was crying. And looking at him, as if they were waiting for something. No one was meeting his eyes.

The first thing he really remembers was that Toby turned on the news.

"Former White House staffer Donna Moss was found dead today..."

And then they rolled the B-roll. Toby grabbed for the remote to turn it off, but it was too late. The convention, the second one, he was hugging her, she was wearing red.....

Toby turned off the television.

Josh swallowed hard and didn't really know if he was still in his body or not, if he was still alive or not. He was in shock, of course. He knew he was in shock. They were all in shock. But the feeling of his mind not being at all connected to his body was something new. He hadn't felt this way since he was shot.

But because appearances can be deceiving, Leo kept talking to him. It must have seemed like Josh could hear what Leo was saying. DC Police were going through her apartment.

"Josh, I'm so sorry.." C.J. sobbed.

Everything was fuzzy after that. Not until he woke up much later in the day, when the sun was going down. He had been sedated. He was being watched. Dr. Bartlet was crying. She was rubbing his hand, motherly, trying to tell him something. Something beyond that he had been sedated and being watched and...

"They found an e-mail. She.... she e-mailed you, Josh. Right before she died."

She had quit. Right in the middle of the bullpen. She had taken her smile and her long blond hair and had left, left him. He had cried in that hotel room in Houston, the one with the scratchy sheets. He had punched in her number.

"Josh, the police read the e-mail."

She hadn't understood. That was the thing. That was what happened when things had to be unspoken for so long. God, it had been years. So many years and the touch of her hand to his still drove him crazy. He had used up a whole box of kleenex in that damn hotel, alone and crying.

He was going to call her now and tell her that.

"Josh, it wasn't an accident."

Of course it wasn't an accident. It had been an explosion in Gaza. "Explosion in Gaza... some fatalities" was what C.J. had said. An accident was when someone didn't mean for something to happen. Obviously the terrorists had meant for it to happen.

It didn't matter, he hadn't stopped for red lights, anyway.

"Josh, Donna meant to do what she did. She e-mailed you... she e-mailed you a suicide note, Josh. Can you hear me? Josh?"

He didn't cry. And he was going to call her now and tell her that. That he didn't cry. Didn't he Sam and Toby used to go on and on about being "da men?" Hadn't he told her to bring him the finest muffins and begals in the land? Back then, it had been more lust then love, but he didn't suppose he should tell her that, when he talked to her.

"I'm going to call her."

Dr. Barlet looked terrified. Her hand left his. "Josh... oh my God.... Josh, you can't. She's dead."

But hadn't he said "no" earlier? He had said "no" to all of it. He was the Deputy Chief of Staff, when he said "no", didn't it mean something?

It became fuzzy again and remained fuzzy for days, weeks, months, years. His mouth was so dry and parched. Like he had smoked a thousand cigarettes in ten minutes. Big Tobacco, the hotel in Manchester, by then it was definitely love and he had wanted to make love to her on that bed and just forget Big Tobacco and MS and Bruno. And later, he wanted to forget Cliff and diaries and Amy and Jack and hospitals in Germany. At the hospital in Germany, he had wanted to marry her.

They made him read the e-mail, in the end. Toby was furious with him. Wouldn't speak to him. Even years later, when Josh was drunk and alone and obviously crying, Toby wouldn't take his calls. Toby blamed him. Toby blamed himself. Toby and Andi, when they had reconciled completely and decided to adopt, had named the baby girl Donna. Kept honoring the dead by naming their children... Josh didn't have any children and he didn't date.

C.J. had read the e-mail with him. He had asked her to. She held his hand, much like Abbey had. C.J. blamed herself and once, years later, drunk, told Josh about her conversation with Donna during that lockdown many years ago. Now Josh blamed her, too. Josh and C.J. didn't speak anymore.

Leo saved his life. It seemed, over the years, that only Leo really understood. Leo, whose father had shot himself and whose wife had left him. Josh, whose sister had died in a fire and whose assistant had died running away from him. Father, wife, sister, assistant... the one that sounded the most benign was the one that had caused the most pain

Sometimes he was angry. Most of the time, though, he just cried. Leo watched over him. Understood that she was something he wasn't going to just get over, as some brunette had once put it when she stood outside his door months later in a red dress. He had told her he never wanted to see her again. He blamed her, too.

The e-mail had told him to marry Amy and be happy. Have children. Elect another president. Mock Republicans. Forget about her. Forget about the touch of her hand and how she felt on his lap riding back in that over crowded taxi. She wasn't worth it and she knew he didn't love her. She loved him, but she knew he didn't love her.

That was when he started to cry.


	2. Crying: Toby

The gin, or was it bourbon, swirled in between the ice cubes. He stroked his beard and put his feet up on the desk. It was eight at night and everyone was still reeling. In a building where shouting was the preferred form of communication much of the time, the day had been silent. Everyone whispered. As if they were afraid of disturbing Donna. Or, more likely, they were afraid of disturbing Josh.

Toby didn't care one bit if he disturbed Josh and that itself was troubling. He was supposed to be Josh's friend. He was supposed to care for him in his time of need. But he had had only one thought about Josh all day and it was just two words:

You asshole.

He took a sip and tried, as he had all day, to analyze why he felt that way. The morning had been such a shock and there were many moments in C.J.'s office where he felt, genuinely felt, for his friend. Josh, who had lost so much. Josh, who had just lost another loved one in a never ending stream. Fate torturing one person. Why the hell was this all about Josh?

And that was the first point, Toby thought, as he took out a yellow note pad and a pen. He titled the page with the date and began writing, starting with that question. Why the hell was this about Josh? Donna was dead. Donna had...had... taken desperate measures. Donna had been in pain, Donna had been suffering. But it was Josh everyone cared about now. If they had paid attention to Donna yesterday....

"I'm really fine, Toby."

"You seem a little depressed, and that's me noticing, which ought to immediately set off warning bells inside your head," Toby leaned against the glass of Donna's office.

"Is this about the Codel again?"

"It doesn't have to be. You tell me." Toby tried to pin her with his gaze.

Donna moved to the filing cabinets on the far side of the wall. She opened one up and began tearing through the files. Toby had the impression she wasn't really looking for anything at all. "My leg has healed, I am clot free, my brain isn't damaged and its looking good for peace, so it seems like that episode of my life has ended." She grabbed a file and sat back down at her computer.

"Okay."

"It's fine, Toby."

"Is it?"

She turned her head and just for a second he saw something. "I don't really want to be here anymore."

Two weeks later, she had quit and Toby had thought that was what she meant. She meant "I don't want to be at the White House." Maybe that's what it was at the time. Now, he looked at the paper and saw those words written. He had told the police about the conversation earlier in the day. They seemed extremely nonplussed.

Nobody thought of Donna without Josh, Toby thought. He took another sip. Couldn't have been very good for Donna, in the end. She was an appendage. She must have thought that the body she was attached to didn't need her anymore. Which made Toby wondered what Josh had done. Which brought it all back to Josh again. Toby slammed his hand down on the desk.

You asshole.

Charlie had started it earlier in the day. He was a whispering shadow, like all the other staffers. He had wanted to see Josh, but when Dr. Bartlet came from the residence, her lips were tight and she had immediately called GW. Twenty minutes later, three doctors arrived. Dr. Bartlet just shook her head.

A red rose had magically appeared on Donna's old desk, abandoned since the temp had been told to go home. A sympathy card had also appeared on Josh's desk. Both from Charlie and he had started a flood. That end of the Operations Bullpen was now littered with flowers, cards and sobbing staffers laying them down with shaking hands.

"I didn't mean to start this," Charlie whispered to Toby as they watched Ed and Larry lay down bouquets of tulips on the filing cabinet.

"It's okay," Toby had whispered back.

But he was not happy to see Josh's office filled with cards and flowers as well. With deepest sympathy. So sorry for your loss. C.J., whose despair pained Toby far more then Josh ever could, had gone in there at one point and lit two candles around a framed picture of Josh and Donna from Inauguration. Josh and Donna. C.J. was mourning both of them, it seemed. Toby had rushed away from the office. Angry.

This isn't about Josh, Toby wrote. This is about a young woman who came to a presidential campaign with nothing. This is about a caring, deep soul whose pain was as intense as the love she had for this world. This young woman didn't want to punish those who had hurt her, those who had bombed her and nearly killed her.

A thought came to Toby that he was immediately ashamed of. He took another sip of his drink to try and chase it away but it remained and when he looked down he saw it written on the yellow pad.

"Guess you don't need to be Jewish to be crucified anymore. Donna died for Josh's sins."

You asshole.

Problem was, Toby mused, it was true. She had died because Josh was a coward. Because Josh was self-absorbed. Yes, they all were friends and all supposedly looked out for each other. But Donna's well-being was Josh's responsibility, anyone with a brain would agree. How could Josh have not seen it? Had he been that lost in work? Was he really that stupid?

No, Toby thought and wrote at the same time, he was an asshole and a coward.

Leo had seen him pensive earlier in the day and had stopped in for a quick chat.

"It's really hard to believe," he had said as he settled himself into the cushions. "It's really just impossible to believe. I keep thinking about it and thinking about... thinking about how I survived booze and pills and a heart attack and a war.... Donna was a remarkable young woman, she had so much to live for and so much left to live, you know what I mean, Toby?"

"Yes, I do."

"What would make her...."

Toby interrupted, unable to stop himself, his voice so soft he couldn't hear it in his own ears. "Come on now Leo, you and I know exactly what would make her do what she did."

Leo's eyes widened. "Toby, don't get mad at Josh."

"I won't..."

Leo's voice became harsh and loud, breaking the silence that had blanketed the building like roses and candle wax. "You will and it looks to me like you already have."

"Who else could have said something to her, or done something to her... who else had that kind of power over her?"

Leo's face turned ugly. "You don't really think..."

"No, of course," Toby's voice got even softer. "Of course, I don't think... Look, I know Josh will never recover from this. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. He'll probably resign and need a lot of time just to function again. I know that this is the last thing in the world he ever wanted for her. But what did he want for her? What did he want to have happen?"

Silence, for a brief moment.

"I don't know..." Leo looked into Toby's eyes and his voice became horse. "He loved her very much."

Toby's voice, on the other hand, got louder. "See, that's the thing. I've been thinking and remembering and while I can see plenty of evidence that she loved him, took care of him, nursed him back to health and would jump to the moon and back for him, I see no proof and can remember no time where I saw anything close to that devotion returned to her. She gave him everything and he gave her a paycheck. And you know that if he had ever dropped his pants in his office and said "Do this for me, too" she would have. He may have loved her, but he was a coward."

Toby had never seen anyone stand so fast. Leo's face was a mask.

"And now he's paying a horrible price for his cowardice."

Toby wrote that on the page, too.

He downed the rest of his glass and stood up. Put his coat on, gathered his things. No one had really worked today, anyway. Josh was still up at the residence. At around five, when he was standing outside the residence, he thought he heard screams.

Walking past Josh and Donna's offices, he took the crucifix he had bought earlier and placed it gently on Donna's desk along with yet another red rose. Faith was faith, he wasn't trying to play a sick joke with his words on a yellow note pad. He didn't leave a damn thing for Josh.

You asshole.


	3. Crying: CJ

Title: Crying (3?)

Author: Coffeeplease

Rating: R (Character Death, language)

Category: Heavy angst, adult themes, tragedy and melodrama. Not for the kiddies. AU

Spoiler: Everything's game up to "Impact Winter"

Disclaimer: John Wells, Aaron Sorkin, NBC, WB... I have nothing to give you. I gain nothing from this. Please have mercy.

E-mail address: permission: Sure, just tell me before you do.

Notes: C.J.'s take.

"At the time, I thought I was doing what was best for her."

It was a quiet December night. A few snowflakes had begun to fall outside and Josh and C.J. were sitting around his apartment, drinking Tequila and then beer. C.J.'s head was starting to feel a bit heavy and the noise of Josh swallowing his beer got louder and louder. It was time, she thought.

It had been two years.

It had been a year, five months and four days since she had found him at her grave in Wisconsin. He had driven there in one shot, never stopping. Nobody knew where he had gone, but everyone had guessed. Anyway, he didn't work for the White House anymore, so it wasn't as if C.J. had noticed immediately. President Bartlet had told C.J. to go get him. No use asking Toby.

He had been there for three days.

C.J. had never asked him what he planned to do, why he had done it. Just gently leaned down and touched his shoulder. He was spooned next to the dirt, his face marked and red. There were tracks of tears but there was something else, something uglier and deeper that had scarred him. A red line on his lower cheeks.

A line in that damned e-mail: "Some days I just lived to see your dimples and your smile."

There were some who never quite understood. Will, for instance, couldn't believe it when Josh turned in his resignation three weeks after the funeral. Amy kept believing that, like a stomach bug or kidney stone, it would pass. "You have to get Josh," she had told someone at a state function. "Resigning and being depressed... it's just guilt. He'll get over it and be back to browbeating Republicans in no time."

C.J. told Josh and he laughed, very quietly. It wasn't the Josh laugh of old or even a Josh laugh C.J. could recognize. But then again, this Josh no one could recognize. He never shouted. His smile was small and toothless. And the last thing he really wanted to talk about was politics.

For the first year, he hadn't really wanted to talk about her, either, and C.J. did her best to respect those wishes, although she was not entirely successful. C.J. wanted to talk about Donna. C.J. sometimes begged to talk about Donna. She'd talk about her with Toby, with Leo, sometimes even with the President. Sometimes she couldn't stop herself.

Like this night.

"I really... see, Josh... I just wanted her to grow and to be happy. I knew in some ways that what I was saying to her, to have a life without you, that it wouldn't have made either of you very happy. But at the time... at the time, all I could see was a woman in love with what she couldn't have. And no one is very happy like that."

She had, once again, said the wrong thing.

Josh's eyes got very thin and his mouth twisted. He took a very large swig of beer and set the bottle down sharply.

"Josh..."

"It makes perfect sense," his voice was almost unbearable to her. But she had started this conversation. She had to listen to him. "You and Toby and everyone... you all thought... you thought that she was just so madly in love with me and that I was completely indifferent to her."

"Of course not."

"What did you tell her to do...'Anything that doesn't have to do with Josh Lyman.'" Josh leaned back in his chair. The tension radiated from him. "She certainly managed to do that."

C.J. couldn't forget the words of the e-mail, even though she had wanted to, so badly, over the years: "I tried to do something that doesn't have anything to do with you, Josh, but I can't. I can't and I won't but I should and I can't go on like this anymore. So this I am doing by myself. Because its the only thing I can do."

After they were done reading the e-mail, they were both crying.

Two minutes after they finished reading the e-mail, Josh's body began to shake.

Ten minutes after they finished reading the e-mail, Josh began to scream.

C.J. had tried to calm him, but he thrashed around in the bed, a wounded and trapped animal. He ripped at the printout until C.J. had taken it away from him. With wild eyes he had grabbed her and shook her as the secret service agents drew closer to the bed. Dr. Bartlet ran out of the room.

"It's not true!" He had screamed. "It's not true! It's not true!"

He calmed down slightly by the time the doctors gave him another sedative. Huge sobs and muddled words. A few minutes later, he was in a deep sedate sleep. Dr. Bartlet held C.J. while she cried.

"I'm afraid for him, m'am," C.J. whimpered.

"You should be," Dr. Bartlet had replied.

The funeral was on a Wednesday and both Sam and Toby had to hold Josh up. He was drunk. Exceedingly drunk. Leo watched with eyes that were both cutting and sad. Josh wore his sunglasses and slumped over in his seat. The ceremony was about an hour long and the President had given the eulogy.

"I remember young woman who came to a presidential campaign with nothing. I remember a caring, deep soul whose pain was as intense as the love she had for this world. This young woman didn't want to punish those who had hurt her, those who had bombed her and nearly killed her."

Donna's parents looked to Josh as if he held some magic answers. Toby gripped Josh's arm, but wouldn't look at him at all.

And as C.J. and Sam had led him away from the cemetery, he took his sunglasses off and looked back at Jack Reece, Dr. Freeride and Colin Ayers. Men who didn't know each other, sat apart from each other and yet Josh knew each one.

"How come," he sounded remarkably sober. "How come they were allowed to love her? What was wrong with me?"

He turned to C.J. and she was at a loss.

"What was wrong with me, C.J.?"

"You did love her."

Josh sobbed. C.J. and Sam had to grab him tightly as he lost all control and almost fell to the ground. "I never got to show her that. What was wrong with me?"

It had been two years.

"What was wrong with me, C.J.? Why did you tell her to do something, anything as long as it didn't involve me," Josh took a swig of the tequila bottle. "Did you think I wasn't good for her? Did you think I was using her? Did you honestly think in that goddamn little head of yours that I didn't love her back?"

"Josh..."

"Just don't. Just don't. You don't know. I'm sorry you read her e-mail with me and got to see just how right you were." Bitterness and anger overtook him when he was drunk. But it was never long before the tears came. "I'm sure Donna was extremely embarrassed and humiliated and you were such a great friend to make her feel that way. Especially since there was nothing she felt for me that I didn't feel back and even more so... because," his voice choked and tears were now freely running into the scars on his cheek, "... because I loved her so much I could never have left her like this. You made her want to leave me."

His words slapped C.J. and she knew that tonight had ended years of sticky wicket jokes, small pox articles and stolen brownies. She had known, but she had to tell him anyway. It had eaten her alive over the years. She left the apartment. It was a little past midnight.

The e-mail had taken over ten minutes to read entirely. There were many points C.J. had had to look away. She felt intrusive. She felt afraid.

"It's not anyone's fault Joshua," Donna had written. "I love you, more then anything else in this life. But I know you don't feel the same way. I'm positive you don't. And I'm sure that, although this will hurt you, that you will bounce back and marry Amy and mock Republicans."

In the end, neither Donna or Amy had really gotten Josh. C.J. wished she didn't understand so clearly.


	4. Crying: Finale

Title: Crying (4/4)

Author: Coffeeplease

Rating: R (Character Death, language)

Category: Heavy angst, adult themes, tragedy and melodrama. Not for the kiddies. AU

Spoiler: Everything's game up to "Impact Winter"

Disclaimer: John Wells, Aaron Sorkin, NBC, WB... I have nothing to give you. I gain nothing from this. Please have mercy.

E-mail address: permission: Sure, just tell me before you do.

Notes: That's it for the melancholy. Next thing I write's going to have bunnies hopping in a field of gold. Thank you to everyone whose written me and said they enjoyed it. This one may be a little hard to follow at times, but I think you get the gist of it in the end. Josh's life without (or with) Donna.

It would be a lie to say that Josh Lyman never enjoyed life again after Donna Moss died. There were good times, good moments, freeing moments. Watching Charlie grow into a skilled political animal, as good, if not better, than Josh was. Andy sent pictures of the kids, Abbey the grand kids and Josh would file them away meticulously. He had become a neat freak since she had died. He had had more time to concentrate on these things.

Leo, C.J. (after they had reconciled), the Bartlets, everyone would approach him once every few years with a woman they had in mind. A friend of friend, smart, funny beautiful and it would be casual, drinks and dinner, no pressure. He smiled a small smile and looked down at his shoes. They knew it was futile. He would always say no.

He had chosen the life of a monk. He had chosen to remain celibate, for many reasons. Sometimes to prove her last words wrong, that he had loved her, had wanted her. He also supposed it was a way of remaining faithful to something that never was. But he also knew he was desperately afraid to love again. Years passed and he was too old to get back on the horse, anyway. It was the wrong horse.

He drank far too much for anyone's liking, especially Leo's.

But the years had not been cruel, had not been bad in Josh's mind. Only futile. Early on, despair had pushed him to the brink of sanity, perhaps well around the bend. He had held razors in his hand, pills in his backpack and once at her grave had promised he would be with her soon and had cut at himself. But he couldn't follow her like that. She had told him to go on living. And he was never so angry with her that he couldn't honor that request.

He followed her in other ways. He had become neat and celibate. Every year, on both their anniversaries, he went to the Hawk and Dove and wrote a letter to her. Some years, the letter would be twenty pages long and he would have had six beers before getting to the end, where every year he confessed his love for her, begged her to wait for him wherever she was. Later in life, the letters became more morose, as he pictured his own final end. The begging grew more insistent.

She was not with him every moment, but she arrived at some point everyday. The tall blond he saw outside Starbucks. Seeing Wisconsin cheese in the grocery store. Whenever he put a stamp on a letter. Red dresses and birds tapping on windows.

The tactile reminders alone kept her close, but Josh's own daydreams kept her closer. Late nights were spent in his armchair, his eyes partially closed, half-dreaming and half-pretending that it had never actually happened. She hadn't quit, she hadn't died, they had finished out the second term together.

At one of the many good-bye soirees, both large and small, Josh thrust into Donna's hands a letter he had written at the Hawk and Dove some years before, the night she had gone off with Jack Reese to the inn. Donna fingered the paper nervously and asked him if she should read it here or wait until later. Josh had just shrugged his shoulders, somewhat nervously.

The booth commandeered by Toby, C.J., himself and Donna was empty at the moment. C.J. was in the midst of her finest "Jackal" and Toby was blowing smoke rings and pretending to play the bongos. Donna slid into the booth and opened the letter. Nervously, Josh stuffed his hands in his pockets and pretended to watch C.J. He tried to keep from glancing back and failed miserably.

Donna's expression was completely neutral for the longest time. Neutrally breathtaking, Josh thought. After she had gotten to the second page, her lips curled into a smile and Josh finally exhaled. What he had wanted, what she had wanted... it was finally going to come together. He didn't have the courage to speak it yet, but he knew, he had always known.

Neither Josh nor Donna had noticed the club still to silence when their lips finally met that night. But the round of applause and catcalls ten minutes later, when they broke for a breath, was deafening.

"Eight and a half years in the making, baby!" C.J. had shouted as she thrust her grasshopper into the air (and all over herself.)

Leo beamed. "That's probably the best thing to come out of the Bartlet administration."

Toby followed up, cigar firmly in mouth. "Donna, you should have done that years ago. Kept him from talking!"

Donna blushed and both of them were grinning like idiots. Their friends continued to party, to find release and let go of all the stress. Josh and Donna huddled in the booth, speaking softly and kissing, sometimes gently, sometimes passionately. Every thirty minutes or so, Toby would shout out "Get a room", but he never meant it badly. They were drunk and they were giddy.

"I think you should have said screw the administration, screw the rules, this is true love and gotten a room."

He had run into Toby about ten years after her death in a small cafe in New York. Josh was advising an aspiring state Senator on a run for the U.S. senate and was just staying a couple days. Toby and Andy had moved there sometime ago and it had been so awkward and painful just to see Toby's face that Josh almost ran out of the place.

"I think..." Josh looked down at his coffee. "I think I should have done that, too. God, if there's anything I regret most..."

"Of course," Toby folded his hands. "At the time, I would have killed you if you had done anything like that. Anything even remotely like that."

"C.J. would have had my balls in a jar."

"C.J. probably would have had to wait in line," Toby took a swig of his coffee. "It would have gotten to the press, Donna's name would have become a synonym for "slut", you would have broken about eighty-three ethical rules and, you know, it would never have been a fair relationship as long as you were her boss, but at the same time... it probably would have been worth it. Not probably, it definitely would have been worth it."

And it would have been. Josh sank deeper into his armchair, hand curled around a prescription bottle, pretending to remember. He took Donna home from the end of term party. She had been a bit bashful, naked in front of him the first time. He asked if they were going too fast. She had smiled.

"Like C.J. said, eight years in the making, baby."

Making, baby. They had never really determined if it had been that night or another night. Donna claimed it was a Saturday morning, he had brought coffee and the Post to bed. He thought it had to have been the first night and fate was just chastising them for taking so long. At first, neither of them knew what to say or do. It was silence for ten whole minutes staring at a piece of plastic.

"Whatever you choose to do... I mean, I'll support... I mean, it's your choice but I'd be, I'd be very happy to have it, but I don't want to influence you."

Donna cocked her head at him. "I definitely want to take your opinion into account, Josh. Jesus, this affects you just as much as me." She smiled. "Well, for the next nine months, not so much."

"Well, the kid's half mine, so he'll probably overachieve and come out in seven."

Taxing Josh's patience, the kid came out in nine months and a week. In the delivery room, Josh threw up, nearly fainted and promised the kid lifetime Mets tickets if he would stop hurting his mother so. Donna had told him, alarmingly calm, that he was never allowed to touch her again.

Later, with the baby nestled between them, she had assured him she hadn't meant it.

"She never meant what she said, Josh."

Leo was over, looking so old he resembled Yoda. He walked with a cane now and had set it gently on the sofa. Josh swirled the soda water in his cup. He didn't drink around Leo, didn't want the questions.

Leo continued with his thought. "You weren't the reason she killed herself. People... Romeo and Juliet is just a play, people don't kill themselves because they love someone they think doesn't love them back or whatever it was. She was depressed after Germany. She had survivor's guilt. She had PTSD. The only thing that we're all to blame for is not seeing the signs, not paying close enough attention."

"But if anyone should have seen the signs," Josh retorted, "it should have been me. I should have been there for her, more then I was. God, I was so wrapped up in work. I was so wrapped up in myself... I'm still... just wrapped up in myself."

The old man across the room leaned forward. "You're too old to change that now, Josh. The most tragic thing to me about Donna's death is that she would have been able to change that. She would have made you see that there is more to life then politics."

Josh's eyes grew watery. It still was so hard for him. "She did, Leo, God she did. But I'm still... my life beyond politics is her. It still is. I still... feel like I have a life with her."

"You have a memory..."

"No! No, it's not a memory..." Josh didn't want to admit too much. He didn't want to admit that they had three children and she had finished her degree. Didn't want to admit that he knew exactly where the swear jar in the kitchen was, had coached three summers of Little League and had argued with Donna over the cut of their daughter's prom dress.

Leo almost told him not to remember what never was, but they were both too old and tired. To rewind time, Leo thought, but it was a frivolous thought anyway.

He died a year later.

The fantasy had became real one night. Josh came into his bedroom and was shocked to find Donna reading all the Hawk and Dove letters he had written, glancing at all the faces of the children, now grown. The bed was a mess of paper. Her hair was streaked with gray and reading glasses were perched at the end of her nose.

She looked up at him.

"You cut at your cheeks."

Josh found his voice came easy. "You said you loved the dimples. That they helped you get through the day. Since... I didn't want anyone else to see them anymore."

"You changed."

"Couldn't be helped."

Donna put the letter in her hand down. "No, I guess it couldn't. Josh, I didn't think that me ending my life would affect you so much. If I had known then, I would have done things differently."

"As would I."

Donna smiled. Josh feasted like a hungry man. He was well aware that he remained rooted in one place. She crawled across the bed towards him and stood up. "For instance, I would never have let you interrupt "The Jackal" for me to read one of these letters."

"Couldn't be helped."

Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

She touched his cheek with her hand. "Don't cry anymore Josh. You've been crying for thirty years now. Actually, you've been crying most of your life, since Joanie died. And you cried for your father and you cried for me and most of all, you cried for yourself. And I'm sick of the tears and the misery. I'm here now and I'm sorry that I left you."

"It wasn't true," Josh choked out. "It wasn't true, what you wrote."

"I know."

Josh half-laughed, half-sobbed, shaking his head. "I really wish you hadn't left me."

She bit her lip. "Couldn't be helped."

He looked at her, at the laugh lines around her eyes. Still breathtaking. "It really couldn't have been helped? Or was there something I should have said, something I should have done?"

"There probably was," Donna sighed. "But it's over. And it was my choice. A stupid choice, given that you would have coached our son to such Little League glory, but neither you nor I can take it back now."

"I love you," He finally stopped crying.

"I love you, too. And you know what?"

"What?"

She kissed his cheek, right above the scar. "Now we can be together."

The meaning of her words took hold about a minute later. But they were out the door, headed to the Hawk and Dove, long before paramedics even arrived.


End file.
